


Denny Snores

by kurushi



Category: Boston Legal, Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: Challenge Response, Crossover, Friendship, Gen, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-26
Updated: 2009-06-26
Packaged: 2017-10-20 06:52:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/209945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kurushi/pseuds/kurushi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Alan shares a bed with Denny Crane, the snoring prevents him from sleeping, the future prevents him from caring, and late night television is as good a distraction as any.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Denny Snores

**Author's Note:**

> Response to a challenge at the Underground Archive - Characters from one of your favourite other films or shows watch Labyrinth.

Denny snored. Alan had thought that perhaps the worst part of their sham marriage would be the public criticism. They'd married to avoid tax law, and to leave no question in the firm or in the eventual private hospital that where Denny was concerned, Alan called the shots legally. Would stand by his friend, through Alzheimer's, mad cow, or STDs. The Alzheimer's itself was looking, from Alan's perspective, to be another worst part. Watching his mentor, his best friend, the non-sexual and entirely platonic love of his life sink backwards into himself. To see those glazed eyes, and wonder whether when Denny resurfaced he would remember Alan at all.

 

For Denny to have another episode in court, or around Shirley. The thought of Denny shamed, degraded by his own crumbling mind, twisted tight and awful knots in Alan's throat and gut and heart. It rendered him near incapable of thought. The guilt that accompanied it, hating that he was mourning Denny before he was anywhere near fully gone, wasn't nice either.

 

Scheduling women, and bedrooms, and wake-ups. Medication and cases and meetings and court, that was a stressful intrusion into Alan's previously simple hotel-based life.

 

But nothing he had anticipated, nothing he had dreaded or hated or feared was as bad as this. Somehow, between their last sleepover and their first night as a happily fraudulent couple, Denny had begun to snore.

 

It wasn't so bad most days. But sometimes, when Denny woke up from a nightmare, or just forgetful and confused, he would sneak into Alan's room. Huddle behind him, which was just fine. Alan was reconciled with the inevitability of Denny's appearances. What wasn't fine was how Denny snored.

 

A loud, reverberating, old-man's snore. Alan frowned, elbowed Denny's corpulent belly, and rolled further away. He pulled a pillow over his head, and then gave up entirely. Propping himself up with his pillows, Alan sat reclined and turned on the television. He switched channels aimlessly until he found a disturbingly young Jennifer Connelly on the screen, throwing a petulant tanrtum.

 

“Denny, Denny!” He shoved at his unwelcome bedmate, who grunted and ceased snoring for several blissful seconds before falling asleep again. Alan sighed, and shook him.

 

“Come on, Denny, get up! There's a lovely woman on the screen who cannot possibly be of consenting age, and she's got hair like...”

 

Alan boggled. “Christ, Denny, she reminds me of Tara, a bit.” He shook his head at the lost cause that lay snoring, and settled back to occupy himself with the film. Denny was a terrible companion, at times.

 

“Denny Crane,” Denny murmured, shifting a little. Snored. Alan watched as the girl that could have been a woman that had once left him huffed herself in her own bedroom, and flew into a rage over a stuffed toy. The indolence and opulence of her lifestyle, the good all-American brattiness that was bred inside that film-set petri-dish of culture were far more interesting than the plot was. Something about wishes, and magical teenage wet dreams.

 

But then, in glorific glitter-paste and spandex tights, was    
_Bowie_   
, of all people.

 

“Denny, shit! Look, Denny, it's Bowie!”

 

Denny yawned, blinked, and rolled over to stare blearily in confusion at Alan.

 

“Look, he's the, er, what? Goblin king. Ponce in the tights. She wished her sibling away. What a novel way to resolve conflict. Do you think I could try it with that hooting menace, next time I'm against him?”

 

Denny frowned.

 

“You're keeping me awake, Alan. Bowie should take _you_ away, let me get some rest.”

 

Alan sighed, and lay back down. He turned off the television, and Denny rolled back over. Stuttered back to a roaring glottal snore. Staring at the ceiling in the half-light of the early morning, Alan whispered.

 

“I wish that...”

 

But he didn't, not really, not at all. He felt that dread, that awful aching hollowness at the thought of, one day, not being kept awake by Denny. He didn't want to bury his dearest friend.

 

“I wish they'd take your nose. At least for tonight.” Alan finally conceded. He closed his eyes, and tried to focus on his closing for the next day.


End file.
